Townsend and her life partner, poet Valentine Ackland, lived in together from 1930 to 1969. The two published a book of poems together, Whether a Dove or Seagull, in 1933. Most of their life together was spent in Frome Vauchurch, Dorset, and their ashes are interred together in nearby Chaldon, the village where the couple first co-habilitated.